Miracleman: The Silver Age

Miracleman: The Silver Age #1-7

by Neil Gaiman, Mark Buckingham (Artist)

The wait is over! Decades in the making, Neil Gaiman (Sandman) and Mark Buckingham's (Fables) Miracleman continues the groundbreaking saga touted as the greatest super hero story of all time.

In 'The Silver Age', Miracleman has created a utopia on Earth where gods walk among men and men have become gods. But when his long-dead friend Young Miracleman is resurrected, Miracleman finds that not everyone is ready for his brave new.

The story that ensues fractures the Miracleman Family and sends Young Miracleman on a stirring quest to understand this world—and himself. It's a touching exploration of the hero's journey that ranges from the top of the Himalayas to the realm of the towering Black Warpsmiths and into the secret past of the Miracleman Family.

Collecting Miracleman: The Silver Age #1–7.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Science Fiction, Marvel, Fantasy, Adventure

192 pages, Paperback

First published May 7, 2024

Reviews

[Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't believe it was today that Neil Gaiman finished his Miracleman: The Silver Age story, after a pause of multiple decades due to legal complications, and I just read it.

Firstly, to backtrack on Miracleman (also known as Marvelman), this was originally Alan Moore's baby. It was the first great superhero reconstruction of the 1980s, still among more's best before he gave up on that genre altogether, and his beautiful story of a silly childlike superhero in a dark world concluded perfectly with 16 chapters. The narrative was taken to its logical conclusion, as the superhuman changed the planet earth forever and there was no going back.

It was then that Neil Gaiman took over, and wrote Miracleman: The Golden Age. (Gaiman is of course a legendary author in his own right, who has since deservedly become one of the most successful novelists in the world. I still have a soft spot for his comic scriptwriting, and enjoy when he makes an occasional return to the medium.)

Back in the early 1990s, Gaiman was a big name due to Sandman, and it was intriguing that he continued Alan Moore's story by embracing the setting of utopia and showcasing how weird the world could be if society completely changed. How does one write conflict and drama if there are no more problems? It was an interesting challenge.

After the Golden Age was completed, the next arc was appropriately called the Silver Age and then suddenly ended after two issues when Eclipse Comics fell apart and Miracleman was sued into oblivion. Years later, after much litigation, Marvel Comics of all things owned the character and actually got to put these books into print again. Not only that, Neil Gaiman--along with the excellent Mark Buckingham of Fables--were to finally finish this story!

And that's all the catching up needed. Plot-wise, Young Miracleman has been resurrected and gets to explore the world and have philosophical conversations about his place in the brave new world. It's a bit slow compared to what had come before, not as perfect as Alan Moore's literary masterpiece, yet that still leaves a lot of room for good writing. In the end, it seems to be Young Miracleman's place to question what Miracleman has done, which may or may not be valid, as utopias never are all they are cracked up to be.

I happened to think that this would be the very last issue, but turns out it's not. My mistake. It ends with an ominous to be continued, with the finale of Gaiman's trilogy titled... The Dark Age.

Who knows when that will enter the canon? I'll be patient read it in as many years as it will take, and any new Miracleman at all is indeed a a Miracle.

[Drew Canole · Rating 1 out of 5]

Young Miracleman goes on a soul-searching quest looking for answers. After being in a simulation and waking up to the real world where Miracleman is a deity leading a Utopia. I found this to be quite boring... but the last issue does actually intrigue me and sets up "The Dark Age" storyline which promises to have a bit more excitement.

I first read Miracleman The Golden Age back in 2012 and that feels like a lifetime ago. I can't imagine being among the original readers waiting since 1992! Just the wait for this volume to wrap up since the first new issues came out in late 2022 has felt like a journey.


In the end Young Miracleman presents himself to Miracleman and promises to be his adversary. He becomes a Siddartha of sorts and silently sits under a tree in Australia eventually getting quite the following. There's a voice in head asking to be let out...

[Lukas Sumper · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am really surprised since what little I heard before I got my hands on this TPB, was very mixed. But I didn’t want to keep my expectations down, after all this is Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham and not only that but the foundation for this was written decades ago. And thankfully I wasn’t disappointed, I felt the story went into a natural direction with certain characters coming back not forced but because it made sense.

All in all this was subtle and had class, more so than some of his earlier works but that also came at a cost, there was no crazy fighting and grotesque depictions of violence (only in flashbacks) and equally he also was limiting himself in how "mindbending" it gets, it stayed a grounded character study unlike the golden age. But I was happy with that, it holds much more weight this way. For me this was a perfect mix of old and new and its coming out at a very pressing time with the word "nuclear" popping up more and more in our current reality.

The art by Buckingham is what you expect from him at this point- simply great but it's not over the top as it captures that old school style really well.

I did not wait as long as others to get to read this but now I can’t wait to read the continuation of this. (The dark ages) Also the kid in me wants to read a spin off series about the warpsmiths... Looking at you marvel!

I did enjoy the silver age more than the golden age.
A solid 5 out of 5 stars for me.

[Rod Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have been waiting more than thirty years to read this story. I bought Miracleman #24, the second chapter of this book, way back in 1993 and had #25 on my comic book store pull list, but the publisher declared bankruptcy, the ownership of Miracleman fell into a legal morass, and I was left in "To Be Continued . . . " limbo. More than ten years ago, Marvel claimed to have resolved the issues and promised to complete the story, but the final issue of the story arc didn't see print until earlier this year. And finally . . . here it is!!!!

And it's okay.

Long dead, Young Miracleman -- a/k/a Dicky Dauntless -- is resurrected in a new body so he can join Miracleman's utopia. A bit horrified by what he sees, he runs away to explore this brave new world and find himself.

It's pretty good if you're a long-time fan of the series, but Dicky is far from being an enthralling character and midway through there is a groan-inducing forced coincidence as two characters in the series have an unlikely meeting in an extremely remote location.

Gaiman and Buckingham's story arcs seem to be a mirror of Alan Moore's unwinding the utopia and bringing matters back to more traditional superhero fare with portents teasing the return of Kid Miracleman for yet another showdown. Here's hoping they have something more creative in mind for the next arc . . . if it ever appears. I don't think I have another thirty years left in me . . .



FOR REFERENCE:

Contents: Prologue. Retrieval -- Chapter One. The Secret Origin of Young Miracleman -- Chapter Two. When Titans Clash! -- Chapter Three. Trapped . . . in a World He Never Made! -- Chapter Four. An Alien Walks Amongst Us -- Chapter Five. What Lies Beneath -- Chapter Six. Who Is . . . Dickie Dauntless? -- Chapter Seven. If This Be My Destiny . . . -- Miracleman: The Silver Age #1-3. Unused Art -- Miracleman #0. Apocrypha [framing sequence] -- Marvel Comics #1000. 2014 page -- Miracleman: The Silver Age #4-5. Why? Parts 1-2 [framing story] -- Miracleman: The Silver Age #1-6. Cover Gallery

[Anna Quilter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Totally subversive to the Superhero Genre and surprisingly cohesive..compared to a recent read of earlier stories.
Worth more than a glance..

[Alex Sarll]

Well, here we finally are – I think I read the first two issues the best part of 30 years ago, and even that was long after they'd come out, long enough that I incorporated the perfect ending of The Golden Age - and, as pre-internet me assumed, the whole series - into a whole grand theory about our cultural undervaluing of happy art. Which also featured appearances for lost works of Aristotle and Homer, so you'd have thought I might have been thinking to look for further lost works, but no; I was more taken with the vast and ineffable significance of balloons. I still mostly stand by it, even if the Gaiman detail was wrong. Anyway, those two issues aren't here, not exactly - Buckingham has insisted on redrawing them so as not to have a jarring transition midway, which beautiful as this all is, remains frustrating. But then it's a frustrating book in a lot of ways, not just because it's bollocksed up my theory, but because it's appearing out of time. As much as I love the earlier books of Miracleman, and for all Marvel's dubious attempts at tidying them up, if you read them now they are historical artefacts, just like Sandman, or Watchmen. Magnificent achievements, but of their time. And - unforgiving as some modern readers can be - most of us read them with that awareness, accept that some things will feel dated.

This, though - it sort of is a comic from back then, but in terms of having been freshly drawn, freshly released, it also sort of isn't. You can't see the seeds of what followed here, because there weren't any; the story was locked away thanks to various legal fuckery literally long and convoluted enough to fill a book (which I own, and doesn't even quite get to the end of the story). Which becomes particularly ouroboros as related to the opening issue; as the backmatter points out, a story in part about satirising comics' nineties excess was itself left in limbo for decades on account of a collapse caused by that precise phenomenon.

The main thrust of it all, though, follows Young Miracleman, a character implicit in the previous volumes but only seen in flashback*, now brought back to life in a 2003 that would blow anyone's mind, let alone a child of the fifties. But few call it 2003 anymore; it's 19 years into the Era of Miracles, and YM is the wide-eyed viewpoint character seeing how his old chum has rewrought the world. Except they're not so chummy anymore because some of MM's recent actions seem questionable, not just to old-fashioned Dickie Dauntless but to the modern reader (that awkward temporal unsticking again). Still, he undoubtedly sees wonders, not to mention little nods back to previous volumes: the kid who met Miracleman early on, then narrowly escaped Bates' devastation of London, appears again – now unable to remember what was actually said because Alan Bennett's play has overwritten the real memory, even for the person who was there. Nods to the story around the story, too - the former Mister Master, who became the first of a new breed of superheroes, and then decided it wasn't for him, so retreated to a normal-looking British house (albeit up a mountain in Tibet), has lots of hair and is a former gas fitter from Loughborough...substitute one unglamorous Midlands town with another and it's clear who that represents.

Alas, the further into this we get, the less clear anything becomes. For the later issues Buckingham is credited as co-writer too, and Gaiman has always been a hard act to follow, but for someone who's primarily an artist the decline is jarring; there's a general flattening of nuance and marginal invention, plus basic errors creeping in, like the painful "terminatedly" when 'terminally' would have made perfect sense. All of it building to an ending which seems to indicate that this utopia is doomed...just because? Yes, here and there are lovely moments, occasionally rendered more poignant by the intervening years, like superpowered kids bringing down the (replica) World Trade Center as part of playing at classic superheroics. But not nearly enough of them to justify the overthrow of one of fiction's great utopias. I think I'll try to go back to believing that The Golden Age was where the story ended, that all this (and the subsequent The Dark Age, if they ever actually get that finished, even more so) are just imaginary stories, uneasy dreams to be forgotten on waking to another glorious morning in the Age of Miracles.

*Speaking of flashbacks - I don't know whether they'll be in the collection, but the middle issues of this, as well as limping out with months between them, were padded with terrible clip show segments framing original Young Miracleman stories, which served largely as a reminder that, whatever fondness Alan Moore might have had for the Mick Anglo era, Miracleman comics pre-Moore were in fact dire.

[Rick Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

The world of Miracleman continues into the "Silver Age". Picking up the pieces from their previously incompleted series, Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham return to Miracleman with their follow to the "The Golden Age" series. In "The Golden Age", Gaiman and Buckingham explored the new world that emerged from the conflict between Miracleman and Kid Miracleman that decimated the population of London. The stories there were loosely connecting threads that served to really flesh out Miracleman's ascension into true godhood. "The Silver Age" undergoes a much more focused narrative whereby we observe the utopian world through the eyes of the recently resurrected Young Miracleman.

Richard "Dicky" Dauntless, AKA Young Miracleman, was killed in an atomic strike launched by Project Zarathustra against the Miracleman Family. Though Miracleman and Kid Miracleman both survive the blast and go on to their tragic encounter as detailed in Alan Moore's run (which I absolutely recommend reading before "The Silver Age"), Young Miracleman was spared from the harsh realities of learning the truth behind the creation of the Miracleman Family. But with the help of the alien race known as the Qys, Miracleman is able to recreate the body and consciousness of Young Miracleman who now must undergo the same snap to reality that almost undid Micky Moran.

This series is mostly about Dicky Dauntless' journey of self-discovery where he learns the truth about his past and how he came to be Young Miracleman. The 1950's world has now been left behind for the utopian early 2000s where the population of Earth now worships Miracleman and his pantheon of deities that live in the towering Olympus. The primary question remains is whether Young Miracleman can adapt to the role of godhood the way Miracleman has, and if not, what is his place in the new world?

The story does feel a bit padded out across the seven issue arc, but it doesn't ever really lose sight of the main narrative premise that drives the drama. I really liked the way Gaiman develops the character of Dicky Dauntless, as well as carries the torch for the character work Moore put in towards developing Miracleman. There's a lot of interesting themes laced throughout "The Silver Age", but the central premise of godhood remains the primary thrust here. And though I absolutely recommend reading Moore's original run prior to this one (conveniently available now in an all-in-one omnibus as well as Epic Collection), Gaiman does do a decent job contextualizing the previous incidents that have led to the primary story here. "The Golden Age" is not as needed as a prerequisite read since not much from there really carries over aside from some thematic connections.

Mark Buckingham hasn't missed a beat with respect to the artwork and if anything, has significantly improved. The pages here are all redrawn from the original issues that were released before the legal issues halted the series, and they are really well done. Though this arc is relatively light on action, the intense amounts of world-building is really where Buckingham can flex his creative muscles and show off some truly imaginative designs. I've always like Buckingham's work on Fables, but this series has really given him opportunities in a different genre and he does a great job with it.

I overall enjoyed "The Silver Age" more to its predecessor arc and the final issue really makes me interested to see how the story of the Miracleman Family plays out in "The Dark Age".

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Any reader of serialized comics knows that you sometimes come across a "setup" issue in which plot progress is slow or non-existent while pieces are put in place for future issues to move along more briskly. Well, "The Silver Age" arc of Miracleman - comprised of seven individual issues - is essentially an entire arc that is "set up" and serves as the weakest of the six arcs of the Miracleman saga.

The Silver Age brings back Young Miracleman, Dickie Dauntless, who had been in stasis for the entirety of the modern series, going all the way back to Alan Moore's original reboot back in the late 1980s. Dauntless is resurrected into a utopia created by his former mentor and older brother figure - Miracleman. However, Dickie feels out of place for more than just obvious reasons, and the seven issues of this arc follow his exploration into his own origins and determining exactly what his place might be in a world that he could barely have conceived as possible.

The titular Miracleman is not in this arc much at all. Gaiman's is a masterful storyteller, but this story is the most muted in the entire series. It gets into trauma and other darker aspects of the human psyche, all wrapped loosely in a few trappings of the superhero genre. It's done well enough for what it is, but compared to the rest of the series, it didn't show as much imagination or daring.

The big plus is that the ending serves as a great setup and tease for what fans had been wondering about for literal decades - would there be the "Dark Age" arc that Gaiman had conceived of long ago? The answer is apparently yes - and the final few pages of The Silver Age promise a very intriguing finale to the entire series.

[Ignacio · Rating 2 out of 5]

Después de contar cómo el mundo se convirtió en una utopía llega el momento de relatar lo que es vivir en ella. Lamentablemente, Gaiman pierde la oportunidad de desarrollar convenientemente esta parte al centrarse, sobre todo, en la insatisfacción del recién "llegado" Young Miracleman, enfrentándole a su pasado perdido y una búsqueda que interesa bien poco frente a lo que podría haber sido el relato. Más focalizado en contar que en mostrar, el guión dilapida demasiadas páginas en ese viaje de autoconocimiento y reduce las fallas del sueño de Miracleman a viñetas e ideas pueriles. Todo lejos de la inteligencia mostrada en el tomo anterior.

Buckingham está mejor aunque el formato tomo tapa dura no sienta del todo bien a la elección narrativa de planificar la unidad de lectura en la doble página horizontal, con ocasionales excepciones en vertical. Termina siendo confuso cuando después de unas cuantas páginas con la primera secuencia te encuentras, sin demasiado sentido, con la segundo. Le añades que tampoco me gusta ciertas decisiones de color (que pueden ser cosa de la impresión del tomo español) y entiendes mi decepción.

En la coda queda que probablemente esta sea la última historia de Miracleman, dada la anulación de la última historia prevista tras hacerse público el comportamiento de Gaiman como un depredador sexual. Al fan que llevo dentro le gustaría saber cómo sería ese último acto, pero así funcionan las cosas.

[Tom Campbell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the long-awaited continuation of Neil Gaiman's Miracleman saga. This volume follows a resurrected Young Miracleman as he comes to terms with the world he's been resurrected into.

Much of this story was quite entertaining. Young Miracleman, while out of time and carrying outdated attitudes, proves to be a good gateway for the reader into the utopian world created by Miracleman, seeing both its highs and lows. It's a very personal tale, which is both a strength and a weakness. In many ways, it feels more like an interlude than a fully realized chapter in the saga. The end helped to keep down my rating of the story, feeling like it was preparing to revisit old territory.

At this point, it really does feel like Alan Moore was correct in there not necessarily being enough to follow up on. It feels like his story was a rise to perfection, while Gaiman seems to be setting up a fall from grace. At this point, due to real-world issues surrounding Gaiman, it appears likely we'll never officially get his conclusion. In some ways, that might be for the best

[Red🏳️‍⚧️ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, I waited just *gosh* a crazy amount of years (decades? let’s not think about that) to see this story finished all while knowing there was still one final part to be told afterward. Was it worth it? Truly an impossible question to answer! A Dream of Flying, Red King Syndrome, and Olympus are all really just one story, and The Golden Age is also fairly self-contained - it’s about the people of the world and not the Miraclefamily. But The Silver Age turns out to really just be one half a story, and some years from now (when/if The Dark Age is released) that will be its other half.

I’ve never liked Dauntless, and I like him even less now that I have this whole arc, but he’s dislikeable in a way that makes for a good story. I definitely found Miracleman’s utopia ominous back when I first read Olympus, but seeing the world degrade in various ways and regress as I got older, I don’t find his utopia all that unappealing anymore. So I really don’t want to see Dauntless succeed in his plans, cuz whatever they are those plans will suck for regular ppl. Way, waaaaaaay more than Miracleman and Miraclewoman’s did.

I guess the most I can say is I don’t want to see everything reset to square one at the end of The Dark Age, where the world is just left up exclusively to human beings again. I already live in that world and it sucks. I follow feeds in Palestine watching people and their pets starve and suffer to death without water or medicine, tens of thousands dead in the last few months. I want most any world that has a better chance than this one.

[Sam Quixote · Rating 1 out of 5]

Miracleman is a comic with a convoluted past. Post-Alan Moore run, Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham took over and got out the first book in a proposed trilogy, The Golden Age, with The Silver and Dark Ages to follow. Except the then-publisher of the title went bankrupt in the mid-90s so only two issues of Silver Age were published up to that point - and there the title languished, unfinished.

Until now.

With Marvel picking up the publishing rights after many years of legal proceedings over who owned the character (Mick Anglo, the original creator, not the publisher), they reprinted the original Moore run and Golden Age and brought back Gaiman and Buckingham to finally complete the full 7 issue arc, The Silver Age (with Dark Age to follow).

So was it worth the 30 year wait (assuming anyone was waiting - I certainly wasn’t!)?

Nope.

Gaiman’s abandoned his patchwork storytelling approach in Golden Age so Silver Age has a more singular, sustained narrative, although Miracleman remains a supporting character in his own series. Silver Age sees MM bring Young Miracleman, Dickie Dauntless, back to life or something for some reason and the story sees Dickie’s reaction to the “perfect world” MM has created.

Unfortunately Silver Age is as boring as Golden Age. MM is still blandly all-powerful and the story takes a bloody age to get going and nowt much happens anyway. Equally bland and slightly less powerful Dickie runs off (after a baffling encounter - did MM try to molest a teenager?! Is that what the character is meant to be - a super-powered Jimmy Savile?), ponders a bit, has dreary characters say a lot of nothing to him, remembers his traumatic childhood, and then makes some pompous declarations.

The characters are uniformly dull and the lack of an even-slightly engaging story really grates long before the end. The narrative wears its religious references heavily and the comic as a whole feels incredibly self-important - undeservedly so. Gaiman’s vision for his Miracleman run seems to be: show the “perfect” world (Golden Age), bring back a formerly missing character to look at it and go “hmm - but is it?” (Silver Age) and then presumably upend it all in Dark Age. So profound.

Which makes this run two books so far where barely anything happens. It’s so tedious. Gaiman’s written some fine comics in the past but his Miracleman work is definitely not among them. Silver Age is another drawn-out, wearisome clunker of a read in this uninteresting series. If you’re interested in Miracleman, the first couple of Alan Moore books are pretty good but skip everything else that follows. Not all lost art is necessarily a loss for the audience.

[Michael Emond · Rating 4 out of 5]

I mean, how do you even write a follow up to the original Miracle (Marvel) Man by Alan Moore? It was so groundbreaking (although it did borrow a lot from a little known book). Well, after some starts and stops (that spanned decades) we get this collection from esteemed writer Neil Gaiman and the wonderful artist Mark Buckingham.

I had actually avoided reading this for a long time because I didn't think Miracleman needed a sequel and I was afraid - like the Star Wars follow ups or the Matrix follow ups or the ...you get the idea...it would only be disappointing and slightly detract from my enjoyment of the original. Also, I used to be a HUGE Neil Gaiman fan but found myself more and more disappointed by his recent stories.

However, I was very pleasantly surprised by this collection. It would be a five star effort if he had stuck the landing. The story has Young Miracleman being revived from the dead and we has to quickly come to grips that his adventures with Miracleman were a fiction implanted in his brain, that his friend Johnny Bates had gone mad and tried to destroy the world, and that Miracleman and his new alien friends had created a utopia on Earth. Neil is smart in not trying to follow too closely in Alan Moore's footsteps and instead creates a new unique story in this world. I know it is described as Dicky (Young Miracleman) finding out Utopia isn't all it is cracked up to be but I saw it more as a quest for Dicky to understand his past and how to fit into this new world. To be honest, nothing in this story made me think "ah ha!! this is why utopia is bad!". In utopia...as in our real world...we often strive to find our place in it, to find some meaning in our life. It's just that in utopia you ask it in a more perfect world.

The ending ends...a little unsatisfying for my tastes but I do acknowledge it is trying to set up the next volume "The Dark Age" which according to rumours may or may not be done. It would be weird to end the story this way but...it took so many decades for this volume to be done I am not hopeful Dark Age will be done any time soon.

There are a few other nitpicks I could pick (Miraclewoman seems super sure about things and is super wrong, Dicky's decision for what he wants to do with his life seems an abrupt change from his character up to that point, Miracleman has zero personality) but those are pretty minor. Overall - an enjoyable story in a very different way from the original Miracleman.

[Daryl Nash · Rating 5 out of 5]

A worthy follow-up to Moore's original, and to Gaiman's Golden Age. More cohesive than any of the prior works except maybe Olympus.

Young Miracleman (YM), who died in the original series, is revived here, and serves as a 1950s era lens on the communist/pansexual/technocratic utopia that Moore envisioned in Olympus. And Dickie Dauntless (YM's alter ego's name) does not approve of all the changes. I feel like there could have been a little more done with this aspect, but it's an interesting facet of the character considering the tensions between him and Miracleman (MM) later in the book.

There's a super who renounced his own powers to live alone as a sort of guru atop a Himalayan mountain, and he looks an awful lot like a younger Alan Moore. And one quote seems apropos of his withdrawal from comics and superheroes in the last couple of decades:

"At the end of the day, you are dealing with a world shaped by a Nazi scientist's take on preadolescent power fantasies. And now ALL of us have grown up to be preadolescent power fantasies. Even if some of us are ADOLESCENT power fantasies."

In other words, why can't we all just outgrow superheroes already? Typical comic book superheroes are the preadolescent power fantasies. Watchmen, Miracleman, and the other deconstructionist narratives are adolescent. But ultimately, adult concerns should move beyond these power fantasies entirely.

I don't think that is Gaiman's opinion of superheroes, since he's obviously still playing in the sandbox. But, like Moore before him, he's a bit more interested in the mythological aspects of superheroes rather than the power fantasy. (Although he's still deconstructing the latter--for instance, with YM asking MM, "What if you're wrong..." about using his powers to create his own utopia.) There is a tension between turning an adult sensibility on what were kids' entertainments and the very real parallels between superheroes and religious iconography. After all, most gods would be superheroes if you squinted. Some have been long ago co-opted (Hello, Thor).

Perhaps Dickie/YM can be a more well-rounded "adversary" than the rather one-dimensional Bates/Kid Miracleman from the original. But that is what's promised for The Dark Age. I just hope I don't have to wait another two decades to read it.

[Ángel Javier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Qué difícil resulta escribir algo positivo de este archicancelado (y con razón) guionista que una vez fuera niña bonita de todas las editoriales y ahora es el apestado del lugar. En fin, olvidemos por un momento la amarga realidad y centrémonos en este cómic, el mejor probablemente de sus trabajos desde la excelente Sandman. Y es que Gaiman, reconozcámoslo de una vez, no había realizado más que mediocridades desde el final de la saga de Morfeo, al menos en la industria que le dio la fama. Algún trabajo alimenticio y de escaso relieve en Marvel y pare usted de contar (el gran P. Craig Russell adaptó obras suyas realizadas para otros medios, pero no es lo mismo, aunque su nombre apareciera en gigante y el del adaptador en chiquitito). En fin, que no esperaba gran cosa de esta continuación de Miracleman (el anterior tomo no fue gran cosa), pero la verdad es que me ha gustado bastante: el convertir a Young Miracleman en el centro de la historia puede chocar al principio, pero acaba resultando todo un acierto, y la intriga que despiertan en el lector las apariciones (¿sueños? ¿Alucinaciones? ¿Posesión infernal?) de Kid Miracleman también está bastante bien llevada. Desde luego, ni se acerca a Moore, pero Gaiman jamás, ni siquiera en sus mejores tiempos, jugó en la liga del barbudo, así que... eso sí, los dibujos de Mark Buckingham, mejores que nunca.

En fin, lo que es una pena es que jamás podamos ver concluida la historia, porque si ya costaba que el británico entregara cada seis o siete meses un guion de la serie, ahora ya no es que no quiera, es que no va a poder de ninguna de las maneras: Marvel lo ha vetado completamente (insisto, con razón), por lo que, a no ser que le den el cómic a otro (prácticamente impensable), se acabó lo que se daba. Casi mejor, quedarse con la etapa de Moore y pensar que lo que viene después es una historia imaginaria, aunque... ¿acaso no lo son todas? Pues eso.

[Hugo · Rating 5 out of 5]

It would take something to satisfy the patience and expectation, having waited over three decades for the conclusion of this series, but here it is.

This further explores the Utopian society created by the titular character, along with his kid sidekick, Dicky Dauntless, a character conspicuous by his absence since the very beginning of the series, resurrected in almost a throwaway fashion, with ramifications reverberating throughout the entire world Gaiman (and Moore before him) has created. Fascinating stuff, much more concerned with character and continued world-building than spectacle and conflict. That, it would seem, is yet to come in the promised The Dark Age.

The only possible detraction here is that Buckingham's artwork, especially by comparison to his original early '90s penciled pages, featured as back-up extras, seems far more mainstream and pedestrian these days, the youthful exuberance and invention of his early work missing here in favour of simple, clear artwork, telling the story, but lacking any real verve.

(Also, the artist's otherwise unexplained credit as 'co-writer' indicates that Gaiman—hopelessly busy with many other projects—is not entirely committed to the project, that the artist is perhaps working 'Marvel Method' from synopses rather than full scripts, which might explain the often languid, decompressed storytelling, making seven issues of what might have easily been only five.)

Still, the idea that the MiracleWorld is not a Utopia of alien benevolence but a Dystopia of alien invasion is deepened here with the idea that if this is Paradise, where is the Serpent, the Adversary? Only time will tell—let's not hope too much time, I haven't got another thirty years spare to wait.

[Sol]

1954: Marvelman is created in the UK after Captain Marvel is cancelled for legal reasons
1963: Marvelman is cancelled
1982: Marvelman is revived in a gritty reboot by Alan Moore in the British anthology Warrior
1985: Warrior ends, and the comic transfer to Eclipse Comics in California, who rename Marvelman to Miracleman to avoid lawsuits
1989: Moore's run is completed, and the character is handed over to Neil Gaiman, who plans a three arc story
1995: Eclipse folds in the middle of the second arc, The Silver Age. Legal disputes leave ownership of the character in limbo
2009: Marvel Comics swoops in and purchases the copyright to Miracle/Marvelman from the original creator of Marvelman, Mick Anglo
2012: Marvel begins reprinting Miracleman
2014: A "lost" Miracleman story by Grant Morrison is published, the first new entry in nearly 20 years
2016: Reprints of The Golden Age begin, Gay Man and Buckingham plan to redraw the two issues of The Silver Age that were published
2022: The Silver Age begins publishing for the second time.
2024: The Silver Age finishes publishing and oh my FUCKING god Gaiman gets MeToo'd it's over, this character is cursed, there's no hope left, it will NEVER end, The Dark Age will NEVER be published, let alone finished, this series will be a fucking joke about interminable legal battles until the end of time, assuming anyone even cares to remember it the dream of flying is DEAD

[Philmore Olazo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A much better continuation than the Golden Age.

While that book was more experimental, showing different parts of the new world order implemented by Miracleman. This continuation does a much better job at showing said changes through the eyes of our new protagonist, Dicky Dauntless, Young Miracleman.

Moors used his tech to bring Miracleman’s friend back to life so he could also join them in the pantheon in Olympus.

Dicky, who clearly still carries his values and moral compass, is impressed, or perhaps disgusted, by how the world has been transformed by MM. Everything is completely alien to him; technology, morals, the economy, the values. Suspecting that MM did something weird to Kid Miracleman so he turned evil, he left Olympus to try and find who he is in the new world.

The Silver Age is a fascinating introduction to a new perspective, through Kid Miracleman, on this strange world, one that can see past the materialism and see the cracks in the new reality. An interesting sight into Miracleman and the Pantheon’s new opposition.

I just hope we don’t need to wait 10 years before getting the conclusion to this story.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've waited more than 20 years to read the back half of this story, and unfortunately you can pretty clearly see the break, as the creators are different people from who they were 25+ years ago.

The issue is mainly that the story of the first two issues, which was moving rapidly along, suddenly grinds to a halt and we get a very slow view of Dickie's introduction into the Miracle World. It also feels that we're told not shown most of the cracks in the world. He sees them, but as the readers we really don't.

The secret origin of Dickie in the sixth issue is the heart of the new text, and it's certainly as deconstructive as Moore's original, but also some disappointing in its grimy worldliness. Perhaps it would have been more shocking 25 years ago.

Overall, this was still an enjoyable read, but the pace got too slow, and there wasn't a lot that was miraculous. Still, a 3.5 probably, and I'm looking forward to the finale.

[Russ Spence · Rating 3 out of 5]

well, this has taken a while. I first picked up the first volume of Miracleman in 1987, when it collected the original Marvelman strips written by Alan Moore for Warrior. Totally loved it, then carried on with the run from then until London is destroyed. Massive gap, then Moore winds up his run and moves on, with Neil Gaiman taking over. There are a few filler series, then Gaiman's series starts in earnest. Then stops. For over thirty years. In the meantime the original publisher sells up to Marvel and after a while the series starts again, and this, The Silver Age is how this finishes. And how it finishes is that not really a lot happens, and then it finishes on a cliff hanger leading into the Dark Age. After Thirty years. I will read on because I'm hooked and want to know what happens, but hope I'm still around when it starts up again...

[Francisco Becerra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Besides the turmoil of Gaiman’s legal troubles, one have to admire his storytelling capabilities when he’s at his best. His run on Miracleman was very distinct from the (ehem…) Original Writer: Gaiman takes his time to build a tale. Some shiny sparkles of the incredibly wondrous, and trips drom the extraordinary to the ordinary, back and forth. This is the tale of self-discovey of Young Miracleman, make no mistake. Gaiman takes the model of what Moore did to build the utopia and uses his arsenal of slow building to give A FUCKING BLAST OF AN ENDING. This was AMAZING, a lesson on how to take powerful mythic themes and thread them with a modern touch. As a fan of the Miracleman saga that ending made me shiver. It was worth every fucking second of waiting!

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this one.

I remember hearing about Miracleman from people on the Neil Gaiman Message Board, and I didn't think much of it as I wasn't back into comics during that time. Then, during my Graduate School studies I rediscovered the series existence -- this series revised by Alan Moore and continued on by Neil Gaiman -- only to realize I couldn't find it anywhere. I couldn't find it in libraries, or purchases. It had been lost with Eclipse Comics, and the legal troubles that would plague the character and the series for years to come. What was worse, The Silver Age hadn't even been completed before this all occurred, and it didn't seem likely it would continue.

Then, Marvel got Mick Angelo's rights to a character once called Marvelman, derived from Captain Marvel in the UK. Then they got the "Original Writer's" run of Miracleman, albeit censored at times -- which is a discussion about art and censorship all on its own. Then we got to Gaiman's Golden Age: which humanized a lot of Moore's grandiose themes.

Finally, Gaiman and Mark Buckingham got to rereleasing, revising, and adding new chapters to Silver Age. There was a time I would have done almost anything to hold what would be a library book of The Silver Age in my hands. Even before, I got the single issues before I just never received the rest. Maybe that was around the time Diamond was dying as a distributor. I honestly don't know.

But The Silver Age truly fleshes out Dicky Dauntless, who took on his name from Richard Dauntless in the Gilbert and Sullivan play Ruddigore before being put in a terrible orphanage where he faced all kinds of abuse. It was a counterpart to what happened to Johnny Bates at the end of Moore's run, and it makes you wonder just what all three Miraclemen went through even before Gargunza experimented on them.

There is a lot commentary inherent in this narrative. Not just about the dangers of utopias and superheroes' hubris in trying to shape human nature and seek godhood. But also about comics. Mister Master, the first enhanced human under Miracleman's global rule -- who should have been one of many to begin improving humanity itself -- is an obvious reference to Alan Moore himself. While Tom Caxton forsook his power to regain his humanity, Alan Moore forsook the comics medium to gain his peace and creativity in other ventures. But there is more than that here. What you see, with very little action that you would associate with the superhero genre, is something that critiques the idea of the superhero -- in Miracleman the result of Nazi ubermensch experiments -- and how instead of elevating humanity, it infantilizes and keeps them in the pre-adolescent power fantasy from which it should have risen above. That touches on a lot of Moore's points, and goes back full circle.

I always knew there was something off about Avril, Miraclewoman, as well. And Miracleman, too, is so invested in keeping control of what is right even as he questions it. I wonder what Dicky, as Young Miracleman, would present as the Loyal Opposition. As the Serpent in the Garden compared to the absolute horror that Bates poses from the Under-Space. I wonder what Dicky Dauntless will bring to a world that sometimes rebels so hard against perfection and utopia that there are humans that seek brutal adversity: even going as far as to line up to live in garbage heaps, and actually get cancer. I wish there was more exploration of that side, and it feels a little like the creators borrowed from Morrison's The Invisibles there.

As an interesting side note, I like how the creators reference Gaiman's short story "Changes," which I once read from the Smoke and Mirrors collection where someone uses RNA to create a gender-assignment therapy. It's cool that it made it into that segment of this story as Young Miracleman and his company went exploring throughout the world.

I also always had a feeling that the Qys and the Warpsmiths (who were, as it turns out, made by Gary Leach before Moore's revisionism) were just biding their time seeing if they could do something with Miracleman's children -- the "cuckoos" -- as they seem to be fighting something beyond the universe called The Whisper.

But I don't think we will see Miracleman: Dark Age. Or at least not in the way it was intended. It's a bittersweet feeling. Gaiman's actions have changed his publishing future, and rightfully so. I also heard the series isn't as popular. I can see that. Silver Age meanders, and is more introspective. It also feels thinner over seven issues. I know the filler from the early Anglo works in the issues didn't help keep my interest either.

Miracleman is a work that helped shape comics revisionism: the dark and gritty retelling of superhero genre stories to tell nuanced and compelling narratives that examine human nature. This grim-dark look, this revisionism, has an aesthetic that has been imitated and gimmicked to death from what Moore, Frank Miller, and others intended in their works. It is something I remember Debra Jane Shelly telling me was a comics white whale: a story everyone searched for, to regain, and continue. Maybe, it some ways it will remain that way unless they get someone else to continue the work. I could see Grant Morrison doing it, as they had made their own Miracleman story despite being rejected by Alan Moore. I think Simon Spurrier might be a great candidate as well. But I don't know.

I've lived a lot of life when I started reading these stories in particular, and not just Gaiman's work which is a whole other matter. It was a strange feeling finishing it tonight, as this might be the last work of his we see for a long time, if at all. But I'm glad I completed it. It was quite a ride.

[Oliver Bateman · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s fascinating to see this revived series move into conventional “prestige” meta-super heroics, but at least the setup — liberal utopia isn’t working — isn’t bad, though I’m sure they’ll blow the landing. Buckingham is great here, with a mature art style redolent of Paul Smith’s work on the Golden Age, though the abundance of two-page spreads (with horizontal panels going across the page) isn’t my cup of tea (I prefer the 9 panel grid; who doesn’t?). I’ll read what I hope is the concluding TPB when it drops and then call it. Recommended for what it is.

[Miles Isham · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked it. Gaiman’s tale of the resurrection of Dickie Dauntless and his exploration of the world Miracleman has created is engaging and thought provoking. I just wish Miracleman himself was used more. The whole thing with MM floating about being glowy and calm and godlike kind of removes him from the book as an interesting character, which is a shame. I don’t really want MM to be the villain in his own story. It seems unlikely now that this storyline will get resolved but it was fun getting to here.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recent Reads: Miracleman - Silver Age. Back in the 1990s I read the first issues of Gaiman and Buckingham's continuation of Moore's epic. Now legal issues have untangled, and they can finish the story. A boy out of time in a perfect world. What wonders indeed! Utopias need flaws.

I can't help but think of Somtow Sucharitkul's almost forgotten tales of the Inquest, or of William Barton's similarly nearly lost Dark Sky Legion.

[Jonathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

After an interesting but difficult first section (Golden Age), this story is much more conventional. Possibly the most conventional in the Miracleman series. The major plot points are telegraphed or obvious, and it seems to be mostly a setup for the finale. The core premise is strong, but it lacks the unconventional storytelling of the other chapters.

It does make somewhat make up for that with phenomenal art, the best in the series. Mark Buckingham certainly brought his A-game.

[David Palazzolo · Rating 5 out of 5]

So—I’ve been waiting for this since Eclipse Comics sank beneath the waves, wondering just how good it might be. Was it worth the wait? In a word, yes. Gaiman gives us a slow build to a confrontation that not only subverts expectations but beautifully sets up the next (final?) arc. I hope Gaiman can pull another pleasant surprise with that one because he has set the bar so incredibly high

[Satyajit Chetri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well worth the 30-year wait for the conclusion. Mark Buckingham is doing career-defining work, and Gaiman's script subverts expectations like no other. Gratifying to see meaningful and surprising examples in the superhero genre, beaten to death over the last century.

[Sesana · Rating 3 out of 5]

The entire Silver Age basically serves as setup for the promised Dark Age arc yet to come. All this setup feel necessary, at least right now, but it does make for a story that feels slow in the middle. The ending is really interesting, though, something that I don't think I could have predicted.

[Adam Michałowski · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rozczarowanie. Świetnie narysowane, ale w przeciwieństwie do Miraclemana Alana Moore'a, czy nawet The Golden Age Gaimana, The Silver Age jest kompletnie o niczym. Czyta się bardziej jak wstęp do właściwej historii (która, jeśli kiedykolwiek się pojawi, to nie wiadomo kiedy), niż osobne dzieło.